Anyone can open up a package and devour the contents, or order an item off a grease-smeared backlit plastic menu. The true connoisseur knows that the most transcendent snacking experience lies away from those convenient, often slippery beaten paths.

It's the enlightened snackster that looks at a pseudo chocolate milkshake and a salty cardboard container of oil-tortured potato slivers and thinks, "Yeah, let's dip this bitch."

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In all honesty I must tip my snackologist helmet to another pair of snack reviewers for the inspiration behind this particular Snacktaku review. Anyone that travels in snacking circles has heard of MATES - Mike and Tom Eat Snacks, the weekly podcast in which famous actor Michael Ian Black and his good friend Tom Cavanaugh utilize the legendary P.E.R. system of snack evaluation: Pick a snack, Eat a snack, Rate a snack. The audio podcast is required viewing (and I know you aren't viewing) for anyone interested in the science of snackistry or respect for women.

It was during their controversial racism episode (they're both against it) that one of their viewers (debatable) suggest that, for the love of Jerusalem, they dip Wendy's French fries into a Wendy's Frosty dairy treat. It's from that episode that this review was born.

Now some may accuse me of stealing the idea from Michael Ian Black and his friend, but I say can you ever really steal from a fellow snackologist? Let me take it one step further: can you ever really steal an idea?

Yes. I just did. Were you not reading?

Development

Wendy's signature frozen dairy dessert was created in 1969 by dairy man E.M. "Bill" Barker as the best of restaurant founder and culinary legend Dave Thomas.

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Falling somewhere between the thickness of ice cream and the liquidity of a milkshake, for years the Frosty's main selling points were the uniquely mellow taste achieved by mixing chocolate with vanilla, and frustration. You cannot sip a Frosty through a straw, and driving with a cup in one hand and a spoon in the other is illegal, or should be illegal. I am not a lawyer.

Frustration is the mother of invention. Invention married utility and had a child named convenience. Convenience dated a man named Larry Wilson in high school, and Larry came up with dipping salty fries into the chocolate Frosty.

It bears mentioning that in 2006 Wendy's introduced the vanilla Frosty, breaking with 37 years of tradition to appease the whims of white flavor supremacists. What I am trying to say here is that anyone who dips fries in a vanilla Wendy's Frosty is a racist.

Graphics

Wait, those aren't Wendy's French fries, are they?

If you've not visited a Wendy's since 2010, those wrinkled, skin-covered potato spears are completely alien to you. You're used to the limp, pale yellow fries of the restaurant's past. The fries that, when left out for more than a few minutes, transform into pure distilled sorrow.

Two years ago (I bet they were waiting for Dave to die), Wendy's replaced those horrid things with beautiful hand-cut, skin-on French fries, coated lovingly with sea salt. Not only are they tastier, but they hold their flavor longer.

But how do they hold a Frosty?

Gameplay

Brilliantly.

The question never was "should I dip Wendy's French fries in a Wendy's Frosty." That's a time-tested formula for excellence that no snackologist in their right mind would ever call into question. They'd be cut into strips, dipped in oil, sprinkled with salt and then eaten in a bizarre parody of the object of their misplaced derision.

The snack game can be brutal.

No, the question was "should I dip Wendy's NEW French fries in a Wendy's Frosty?" The answer? I suppose it's up to you. You could spend your life not doing it. You'd be a social pariah, sure, and no one would ever love you, but that's the price you pay for individuality, hipster.

The Verdict

The first round of Wendy's fries in Wendy's Frosty was a fluke; a happy accident. Larry Wilson (not a real person) dropped a fry in his frozen chocolate dairy treat, and history was made.

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I'd like to imagine the second round, today's experience, is a manufactured one. Wendy's is an international business, employing the best corporate snackologists in the business, working around the clock to innovate and improve. And while we indie snackologists may turn up our noses at them for selling out, without them Wendy's would have never realized that a company that prides itself on chili and fries should offer chili cheese fries. Seriously, they just now figured that out.

So I imagine these snackologists created the hand-cut, sea salt encrusted fried potato as the ultimate Frosty delivery device. The frozen chocolate dairy snack clings more efficiently to the irregular shapes. The deeper, richer taste of all-natural potatoes adds power and volume to the experience. The sea salt adds just the slightest hint of crunch. That's no coincidence.

So I tip my hat (actually a helmet) at those sell-outs just this once. You may be working for the man, but I realize that doesn't mean your work is bad. You've done good, boys. You've done us proud.